Was inspired by an image that a photographer did on Flickr that you can see here at www.flickr.com/photos/erroba/5665587779/in/photostream . So I thought I would try photographing a match lighting and see where that would lead me. I didn’t have a macro lens like Erroba but I used my 60mm which did a pretty decent job.

My Camera Settings:

1/500
f/5.6
ISO 100
60mm lens

I was about 2 to 3ft away. I also would focus on the match head, turn off my autofocus, and then reposition the camera for different compositions. Its easiest to use another match to light the match being filmed. I shot in camera raw and had the shutter set to continuos. I also used a remote shutter release. My camera is a Canon T2i, and I’m sure that if you have a higher end Canon or Nikon your shutter speed will be much quicker.

I then brought the image into CS5 for some light sharpening, denoise and a levels adjustment. I then slightly adjusted hue and sat to my liking. From there I brought the imageback into Aperture 3 and applied a desaturated film preset that you can find on ApertureExpert.com. You can see a video I made of the rest of the imagery here:

For some of the images I broke out a 580exII speedlite and did some multi-strobic flash that turned out great and you can see some of that in the above video. A friend suggested it would have been interesting to film the match lighting sequence backward from lit flame to unlit match and I agree. These are great images that you could no doubt use in your own home for a Spark or just at its a core its a fun project to try on your own.